The corporate agenda does not include most of us except as fodder.  We are tired of being fed to that agenda.  We demand a better equity.

                                     c Chuck Davis/Jim Mackenzie

The painting stopped me cold.  The whole of the landmass was covered in forest as far as the eye could see and the only sign of human activity was a few tiny clearings with just a hint of whispy smoke from longhouse fires at the extreme edge of this vast forest.

It was Vancouver barely touched by humans and although I had always been vaguely  aware that this was the way the city looked before Europeans,  I had never seen such an evocative presentation.  The full colour double page plate took my breath away.  And it took my mind away to a different time;  a different reality.  It woke me up.

Then, when I turned the page, I found another two-page full colour image;  a photograph of Vancouver now taken from the same angle as the painting from 1792.  I found myself flipping back and forth between the two depictions, letting my mind play with the wonder of  the striking differences between those two worlds.

c Chuck Davis/John McQuarrie

In these days of  downloads and e-readers I sincerely doubt that the cramped and colour-challenged e-reader screen would have left me so utterly  breathless.

Today I find myself inexplicably drawn to a glass of philodendron cuttings on my kitchen window sill.  In an hour I have filled pots with soil, planted the newly rooted branches and set them in the sun.

A fragile “pocket desert” in British Columbia needs protection. You can help!

Please add your voice now to create a national park in the South Okanagan-Similkameen. This sensitive landscape is one of the most endangered in Canada. Developers are “paving this paradise” at a rapid rate.

This park is urgent! The B.C government is stalling.

We need to save some of these rolling hills and delicate grasslands before it’s too late. Please e-mail a letter today. It’s easy!

In these trying economic times I would think that such a large sum of money might be useful in better ways than pissing it away on prisons and planes we do not need.

Give it some thought and then get out and vote.  Canada needs a vote of sanity!

Re the purchase of F35 Fighter Jets:

“The memorandum of understanding Canada has signed . . . pretends $9 billion will buy 65 planes -about $70 million per aircraft,”  “Hogwash!” says Winslow Wheeler, a US military expert.  He stated the cost will actually be more than double that or $155 million per aircraft.

So not only is the Harper Government promising to buy 65 planes we don’t need, it’s underestimating the cost by OVER ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!!.  You’ll have to pardon my confusion for thinking  Harper’s economist background might be good for Canada in economic matters.

Neil Boyd, professor of criminology and Associate Director of the Criminology Program at Simon Fraser University has spoken out about the Harper government’s latest criminal code changes.

In an article in The Vancover Sun July 5, he questions both the motives and the rationality of the proposed changes.

“In these days of public sector restraint, there is one realm of waste that is often neglected -the planned and pointless expenditure of billions of tax dollars on new provincial and federal prisons, the consequence of a series of Conservative crime bills.

Never mind that Canada already is a global leader in rates of incarceration, far ahead of almost all of the nation states of Western Europe -and, perhaps paradoxically, Canada typically has higher rates of crime.

The more interesting and relevant finding from recent research is that rates of imprisonment and rates of crime are not related in any systematic way, from one nation state to the next.

What is significant, however, is the relationship between confidence in the political and justice systems of a country and rates of imprisonment. Polls consistently demonstrate that nation states with the lowest rates of imprisonment also have citizens who have the highest levels of confidence in their political systems and their justice systems.”

Boyd  goes on to question the Conservative government’s rather obvious disregard for scientific research into the roots and remedies of crime.

“As one contemplates the lack of science in virtually every crime bill dutifully trotted out in Parliament by the Harper Conservatives, one is tempted to either laugh or cry.

It’s easy to dismiss them as ideologically driven fools (and there is certainly a wealth of evidence in support of such a proposition), but I think we have a deeper problem -a fundamental lack of belief in the tenets of science.

Consider the recent legislative initiative regarding mandatory minimum sentences for any person who grows more than six marijuana plants.

Does it make sense to spend billions of our tax dollars putting the producers of a relatively benign mind-active drug in jail, at the same time that the executives of tobacco and alcohol companies are regarded as contributing corporate citizens?”

Does it, indeed?

So there you have it kiddies.  Before you vote, think on these things.

Then one Saturday after dinner Steve opened the door of his new dishwasher.   It took us barely  ten minutes to  load it and the job was done.  We moved on into the living room with Dina and Sharon.

It was not until a few Saturday dinners had passed that I realized that something important had happened; that the dishwashing hour was gone.  That, even though other conversations happened,  there had been something special about that hour and it was missed.

I don’t see Steve much these days.  I’m in Vancouver;  he’s in Calgary.  But lately we have revived an old ritual of camping together for a week or so in the summer.    Each night after dinner there are dishes to be done and, of course,  no automatic dishwasher in sight.   Steve and I are often the first to volunteer for the job.

We’ll show more of these charming individuals in further posts.  Stay tuned!

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